with you, i'm warm
by hiyoris-scarf
Summary: A story of two very different winters. (Submission for the FMA Secret Santa exchange)


_Before I could name this feeling that danced: soft cords of light between my ribs,_

 _You and a strong fire to me were always, always—one and the same._

* * *

The last time there had been a storm this severe, the elders of Resembool marked the date on the calendar as "The Winter of Too Much Whiskey and Too Little Firewood." Pinako Rockbell, especially, was wont to reminisce about that particular December with rare nostalgia. It was the year she met her husband.

During the blizzard raging half a century later, the front door of the yellow house flew open, ushering in several feet of freshly fallen snow and a very windblown Winry Rockbell. Her cheeks were riotously pink from the record-breaking chill, and she brushed the fast-melting droplets from her sleeves before they dripped down into her many layers of clothes. As she set her bag down on the floor and shed her hat, coat, scarf, and gloves, her eyes fell on the familiar overcoat currently hanging askew from the back of one of the dining room chairs.

"Ed?"

The door to the living area cast an orange rectangle of light into the dark kitchen, and Winry walked into the adjoining room expecting to find the coat's owner immersed in some dusty, foreign text.

"I got everything for stew tonight, except they didn't have—what's wrong?"

She stopped short after entering the room, her voice pitching upward with worry. The former alchemist sat at the end of the living room couch, farthest away from the fireplace, and was slumped over with both elbows resting on his knees and his forehead cradled in two hands.

"Did Al call? Is something wrong?"

Winry couldn't quite keep the note of panic out of her questions as every possible calamity paraded across the front of her brain.

The only answer she got was a low, agonized groan. Crossing the living room in two strides, she shook Edward's shoulder, which prompted another noise of anguish. Then, Winry realized that even though the house was not all that warm, he had stripped down to nothing more than a sleeveless shirt and the boxers she usually only saw during his automail repairs. To top it off, the heat of his skin underneath her fingertips was positively baking. Urgently, she asked:

"What's the matter with you?"

Without even lifting his head, Ed was able to communicate a picture of acute misery. The wince in his voice was audible as he morbidly declared:

"It's back."

* * *

 _"Edwaaaard, come out!"_

 _"No!"_

 _Winry cupped both gloved hands around her mouth as she shouted up at the Elrics' second-story window._

 _"Pleeease?"_

 _Pouting pointedly, she hoped Ed could see her from his seat upstairs as she tapped one tiny, booted foot against the tightly packed snow._

 _"I'm busy studying. Leave me alone!"_

 _A long bout of coughing followed this pronouncement, and the little girl's eyebrows scrunched together in concern._

 _"You can't work on your alchemy while you're coughing like that!"_

 _"Yes I can! I'm doing it right now."_

 _Winry was sucking in a breath to retort when Alphonse's small, anxious face appeared around the front door, which was now cracked open against the cold wind. He glanced nervously up at the window, then motioned for Winry to come towards him with one silent finger._

 _"Is something wrong with Ed?" she asked quietly after reaching the threshold._

 _"I think he's sick. He keeps coughing like that, and…"_

 _Al's face crumpled, and Winry pushed past him into the house without waiting for a conclusion._

 _"What a dummy. I know it's freezing up there, and he'll just get worse if he stays where he is."_

 _"Winry, wait—"_

 _She halted at the foot of the stairs, cold ponytail whipping her in the face as she spun around._

 _"What is it?"_

 _"I think he's forgotten—forgotten what happened to mom. It seemed like he was talking to her earlier."_

 _Winry's eyes widened slightly. Then, she set her mouth in a firm line._

 _"He'll be okay, Al. I'm going to make him come down here. I'll_ drag _him if I have to."_

* * *

Winry waited for understanding to dawn on her as she watched Ed raise his forehead slowly from where it rested on his palms. He seemed to lose energy partway through, and let his left cheek fall back onto his hands. Although his face was now turned towards her, long bangs obscured the upper half of his face.

"What's back?" she asked quietly, hoping with every fiber of her being that the answer wouldn't be Father, the homunculi, Kimblee, or any combination of the three.

Ed's expression—what was visible of it—soured.

"Just wait until I start speaking gibberish to people who aren't there, and you'll understand. I'm sure it'll begin sometime in the next hour—unless the puking comes first."

Understanding dawned.

"That's all this is?! You're getting sick?"

Winry snatched her hand off his shoulder at once, making a mental note to wash it thoroughly. However, Ed's dejected posture and obvious misery tugged on something in her chest.

"It's probably only the flu. You'll be fine, I promise."

"No…no, it's the _same_ flu I caught the winter right after mom died. It's back for revenge."

Winry blinked, repressing a bemused smile.

"I can say with complete assurance that _that_ is not true."

Ed brushed his bangs back with a sweaty hand, failing to suppress a grimace as the aches of his illness began to complain.

"Ugh, this is awful."

Setting her hand gingerly back on his shoulder, Winry resigned herself to the fact that if Ed was sick, she probably wouldn't be far behind him, no matter what precautions she took.

"You need to get to bed. I'll make you some tea."

* * *

 _She found Edward sitting alone in an upstairs bedroom, wearing nothing more than a piece of cloth that alarmingly resembled a dishtowel. He was reading one of his father's alchemy books upside-down, and didn't notice when Winry walked in._

 _"It's freezing in here!" she exclaimed, staring in disbelief at her friend's state of nonchalant undress._

 _Ed's eyes left the page, and he glared at her over the edge of his topsy-turvy book._

 _"You've got some nerve to walk right in here after what you've done."_

 _His voice was accusatory. Lips pursed, Winry tried to remember what she might have done to offend him._

 _"Are—are you mad at me?"_

 _"Of course! How can I not be mad if you ate all my cereal and faked your death for three years?!"_

 _Winry's jaw dropped open. A gust of biting winter wind threw the shutters against the wall, and made her clutch the pink coat closer around her shoulders. Recovering herself, she marched across the room to latch the window closed, avoiding the wrinkled papers scudding across the floor like strange white birds._

 _"Okay, now I_ know _something's wrong," she said firmly, fighting with the clumsy lock on the window. "No one is faking their death, and I saw both you and Al yesterday—definitely not three years ago. And in case you don't remember, Ed, you_ hate _milk."_

 _Confusion and irritation warred in his face as she won her battle with the shutters and turned to confront him, hands on hips. His expression soon resolved into a scowl._

 _"Yes—I_ do _hate milk. Now leave me alone. And open the window back up before you go, it's really hot in here."_

 _Now that she stood right in front of him, Winry saw that Ed's lips were light purple rather than flesh color, and his hands shook so much he could barely hold the book in front of his eyes. Her irritation died instantly._

 _"You're sick, Ed. Al is worried about you, and…I'm worried too, a little bit."_

 _Ed ignored her red cheeks and downcast eyes, steadily rereading the same upside-down line for the next few seconds._

 _"You don't get it, Winry. I have to understand this part so I can impress mom. She keeps saying I'll be just as good at alchemy as dad—but she shouldn't even want him around. I need to be able to do_ everything _he can do. Why is the door made of ears?"_

 _Winry spun around to look at the door—which was still quite obviously wood—and took the opportunity to catch the moisture at the corners of her eyes with a sleeve. She hadn't really wanted to believe what Al told her, but it was clear now. Her basic knowledge of illness, gathered from just a few years at Pinako's side, told her that Ed's fever was leading him through a twisted version of reality where his mother was still alive._

 _Turning back and removing the quivering book from his grasp, she said gently:_

 _"You can do that later. After you give studying a break, you'll come back and understand it even more. Now…will you please come downstairs?"_

* * *

"This doesn't taste right."

Ed made a face after sipping the cup of tea Winry brought back from the kitchen. She sat down next to him on the couch, unconcerned by his skepticism.

"It helps with fever and eases aches. Granny and I keep it around for after surgeries, just in case the regular stuff doesn't always work. But it's great for the flu, in a pinch."

Winry placed a folded-up blanket she had carried under one arm onto his lap. Ignoring it, Ed eyed quizzically the floating bits of leaves in his mug, and asked:

"Is it legal?"

Winry's eyebrows ascended towards her hairline.

"Obviously. It's _herbal_ ," she said, as if that answered any possible concern.

" _Herbal_ doesn't mean it can't be illegal," Ed muttered into the cup, taking another experimental sip. Then, his hands shook so hard he nearly dropped the tea into his lap.

"Th-th-that's weird. It was r-really hot in here just a second ago," he said in bewilderment, teeth chattering loud enough for Winry to hear. She grabbed the blanket from where it rested untouched on his lap, and shook it out over his knees. Motioning towards the cup in his hand, she directed:

"Give me that."

Ed complied obediently, his shivering too violent to allow for a response. Gathering the top of the blanket up towards his chin, he slid a little lower against the back of the couch. Winry set the tea down near the edge of the coffee table, and tucked the edges of the blanket in around his shoulders. As she did so, she began to mentally steel herself for the long haul. Ed didn't get sick often, but when he did, it was excruciating and tedious—more for him than for anyone else. She inhaled deeply, planting both palms on the couch cushions and preparing to get up again.

"I'll go get the stew started. You need to eat something nutritious before it gets any worse."

"Odds are whatever I eat will just come back up again," he groaned, shifting uncomfortably beneath the blanket.

"It's worth a try," Winry insisted, standing up and stepping towards the kitchen door.

A very hot, dry hand closed around her wrist, preventing her from walking away. She looked down at its owner, whose head had lolled back onto the couch cushions. The wide-eyed anxiety on Ed's face made him look to be about nine, rather than the decade-older, experienced world traveler he really was.

"Just…wait a few minutes, please."

Winry's mouth parted in surprise, but she allowed herself to be led back to her original seat.

"Is something else wrong, Ed?"

His cheeks were very flushed when he answered, but that might simply have been the oncoming fever.

"No, it's just…still kind of cold in here, that's all."

* * *

 _Halfway down the stairs, Ed came dangerously close to collapsing. Enlisting Alphonse's help to support him for the rest of the perilous descent, Winry turned her efforts to the guttering fire. Prodding it sparked a few more coals to life, but not enough to increase the room's warmth by more than a fraction. Al plopped his brother down next to the heat source, and Winry slid out of her pink coat to wrap it around the shaking boy._

 _"I don't know what to do," Al said, clearly on the verge of tears, as he watched her try and slow Ed's convulsive shivering. Winry immediately sprang from the older brother's side to reach up and ruffle the younger boy's hair. The familiar gesture helped stave off some of his panic, although Al was close to being taller than Winry at this point._

 _"You can help by going to get Granny. The snow yesterday took out the telephone lines, so I can't call home and ask her to come over here—but she knows exactly how to cure a bad flu. That's all that's wrong with Ed: the flu. Nothing worse."_

 _Al nodded, happy to leave his sick brother in the hands of someone who at least acted like she knew what she was doing. Grabbing his coat from the hook next to the front door, he set out into the piercing winter air before Ed's next fit of coughing commenced._

 _"It's s-s-so cold…" he muttered between spasmodic shivers._

 _Winry looked with disappointment at the fire, which was now sadder and smaller than when she first poked it back to life. Ed's fever might be burning him up, but sitting in a drafty house the temperature of Drachma certainly wouldn't help him heal. Gradually, the look of determination crept back into her face._

 _"Scoot."_

 _Ed looked up at her, eyes bleary. His gaze followed her as she grabbed a throw blanket from the couch at the other end of the room._

 _"Huh?"_

 _"Make some room in front of the fire."_

 _He slowly obliged, and Winry sat down next to him, handing him one end of the blanket to pull around himself. Now that she was coatless, the chill of the house definitely started to reach her, and she wrapped the other half of the blanket snugly around her own body. Ed's feverish temperature under the blanket was a furnace, and she tried to snuggle a little closer without being too obvious about it._

 _"Better?"_

 _"Mmpf…yeah…"_

 _Ed's eyelids drooped, and she poked his shoulder—gently at first, then harder._

 _"Hey—stop that!"_

 _After a particularly solid jab, he snapped his head around to look at her. His expression was now fully lucid, and Winry felt a wash of relief, even though her voice still came out somewhat bossy._

 _"You have to try and stay awake until Granny arrives."_

 _Ed didn't respond. Then, he took a slow breath._

 _"So…mom's not here then, is she?"_

 _Winry's stomach dropped slightly._

 _"No, she isn't. Your fever made you think so for a little while."_

 _Silence. Minutes of it. Then:_

 _"Winry."_

 _"Yeah?"_

 _"Thanks for the blanket. I'm…a lot warmer now."_

 _Winry only "hmm"d in response, as she began to hear the faint, quick crunch of Al's footsteps outside, accompanied by the slower tread of her grandmother's boots. When they entered, they saw a small, blanketed bundle in front of the fireplace as the two kept each other warm in the cold house._

* * *

Winry waited for Ed to let go of her hand once she sat down again, but it didn't happen. He didn't seem to notice, keeping his chin tucked into his chest and his eyes on the floor. He finally looked at her when she twitched the edge of the blanket where it was tucked under his right shoulder.

"Hey. Scoot."

Confusion covered his face.

"But you're already sitting d—"

"Just do it."

Ed put on his "yes ma'am" expression, usually reserved just for Izumi Curtis and Olivier Armstrong, and made more room for Winry to lean against the back of the couch. Pulling the blanket out from where it had been carefully tucked around him, she pulled half of it over her own body. For whatever reason, this rendered Ed temporarily mute.

"Warmer now?"

He nodded, making a funny, high-pitched noise that Winry chose to ignore. When he expressed no desire to break the silence, she continued:

"You know, the last time I did this, I got sick as all hell."

She felt his gaze, rather than saw him turn to look at her.

"I didn't, actually. Sorry."

Under the blanket, his hand on hers loosened slightly.

"It wasn't really that bad. No hallucinations for me."

She turned her head and smiled reassuringly at him when his tension remained obvious. His cheeks and ears were extremely red, rivaling the color of his once-favorite fashion accessory.

"Besides, you're right. It is pretty cold in here."

As if to punctuate her remark, Winry wound her fingers through his and settled against his shoulder. Closing her eyes, she didn't see his slightly awestruck smile, or his searching expression as he looked for a few long seconds into her face. However, she didn't miss the slight pressure of his thumb over hers, or his words, barely audible above the small snaps and crackles of the fire in the grate.

"Not anymore."

 _~ fin ~_


End file.
